Let Us Prey is a 2013 British-Irish horror film directed by Brian O'Malley, and is one of the few horror films set in Scotland.
PC Rachel Heggie (Pollyanna McIntosh) is a police officer who has recently been transferred to a small town. After arresting a drunk driver for hitting a man with his car, she brings the man, known only as "Six" (Liam Cunningham), back to the police station for questioning. The small staff consists of the aggressive Sgt. Jim MacReady (Douglas Russell) and lovers PC Jack Warnock (Bryan Larkin) and PC Jennifer Mundie (Hana Standbridge), as well as a couple of prisoners, one of whom is the aforementioned drunk driver. As it turns out, Six has the supernatural ability to sense people’s Dark Secrets and influence them. It’s going to be one hell of a night...
This Film Provides Examples Of:
- Affably Evil: Six is polite, friendly, and snarky, and though it is questionable as to what extent he can be considered evil, he’s definitely amoral. Oh, and he’s Satan.
- And Then John Was a Zombie: Heggie joins Six as an agent of vengeance.
- Asshole Victim: Everyone who dies in the film were horrible people through and through and had crossed the
Moral Event Horizon. - Ax-Crazy: Dr. Hume and Sgt. MacReady, the latter of whom only gets worse as the film goes on.
- Beneath the Mask: Pretty much everyone has their masks peeled away by Six to reveal their true selves, and Heggie is the only one who comes out revealed as a good person. Lampshades by MacCready, who admits to having used his Christianity as a cover.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Dr. Hume and and the rest of the cops in the station aside from Heggie.
- Body Horror: A crazed MacCready covers himself in barbed wire when he goes in a rampage in the station.
- Da Chief: Sgt. MacCready is a particularly unpleasant variant, who eventually turns out to to be a Serial Killer.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Heggie was kidnapped and abused as a young girl for months, until she finally escaped, which is one for the reasons she became a cop. Six notes that, no matter how much she tries lying to herself, she became a cop to punish wicked people like her kidnapper.
- Dirty Cop:
- Sgt. MacCready is a Serial Killer who murders gay men to fulfill his own perverted desires.
- Mundie and Warnock murdered a man for an unknown crime as vigilante justice. Later, Warnock murders Dr. Hume for his horrific crimes, and decide to initially frame Heggie for it and then decide to just kill her and everyone left in the station to cover it up.
- Deadpan Snarker: Six.
- Deadly Doctor: Dr. Hume, who murdered his family both For the Evulz and so that he could capture the human soul. It’s pretty clear he’s lost it.
- Depraved Homosexual: MacCready is, underneath his morally uptight Christian façade, a perverted serial killer with a taste for young men. Six implies that he hates what he is, since it conflicts with his beliefs.
- Domestic Abuse: Beswick beats his loving wife repeatedly, which he claims to be his way of “maintaining the natural order”. Six calls him out on his bullshit, and upon sensing his regret, tries to get him to redeem himself and admit to his real reasons for abusing her, but after he starts blaming his students for it instead, Six makes him kill himself.
- Faux Affably Evil: Dr. Hume, Beswick, and MacCready all act friendly and polite at first, but quickly prove to be utterly monstrous.
- Final Boss: Sgt. MacCready serves as the final threat the survivors face after he goes off the deep end.
- Fingore: Caeser breaks off one of his own fingernails while scratching his name into the cell floor while under the influence of Six.
- Fire and Brimstone Hell: Six alludes to this after a crazed MacCready sets the station ablaze, saying he finds his surroundings comfortable.
- Glasgow Grin: Caesar after having his face shoved into a belt sander by MacReady.
- God Is Good: Six’s speeches imply his falling out with God came from God’s disagreement with and horrified reaction to how Six deals with sinners.
- Gorn: There’s plenty of gory, over the top deaths.
- Groin Attack: After fatally wounding Warnock, MacCready shoots him in the balls, apparently out of spite.
- Heel–Face Door-Slam: Caesar. Six offers him redemption by revealing the woman he hit with his car is still alive and he can still save her, but Caesar is to cowardly to do so until she’s dead, condemning him to death and an eternity in Hell.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Dr. Hume has his face impaled on a table leg by Warnock.
- Impromptu Tracheotomy: An unhinged MacCready shoots Warnock in the throat.
- Large Ham: MacCready, after he completely loses his mind, loses his earlier calm demeanor and goes into full, hammy ranting and screaming quotes from the Bible at the top of his lungs.
- Mask of Sanity: MacReady is a jerk from the get-go, but he seems like a fairly stable and religious man. It's eventually revealed he's secretly a serial killer motivated by fundamentalism and sexual sadism. When Six starts playing mind-games with everyone, MacReady gradually drops the mask and reveals himself to be a raving lunatic.
- Noble Demon: Six. Literally.
- Jerkass: While not coming off as this initially, due to Six revealing he knows of their crimes, Mundie and Sgt. MacCready turn into these and start harassing and bullying Heggie for no real reason.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Heggie is cold, but she’s a good person and cop who proves to be benevolent and heroic to a fault.
- Sanity Slippage: Sgt. MacCready starts to lose it after Six reveals he knows that he's a Serial Killer, and it only gets worse as the film goes on. At the end, he's snapped completely and goes on a rampage through the station, determined to kill everyone to "get back in touch with [his] Christian roots."
- Satan Is Good: Six is much more in line with Satan's role as a prosecutor, only ever punishing and claiming the souls of the wicked. However, he is not soft at all in his punishments.
- Serial Killer: MacCready is revealed to be one, targeting and murdering gay men to fulfill his perverted desires.
- Your Soul Is Mine!: Six claims the souls of everyone at the station except for Heggie at the end.
